Jascha Spivakovsky (piano)
Bach to Bloch - Volume 9
rec. 1953-61
PRISTINE AUDIO PAKM081 [78:09]
This is the ninth volume in an extensive series devoted to the private recordings of Jascha Spivakovsky, brother of the more famous Tossy. True to the subtitle ‘Bach to Bloch’ the disc starts with the former but equally true it once again teases the expectant listener by failing to include the latter; we’ll get Bloch further on down the line.
The Gavottes from the English Suite No.3 in G minor were his encore at a 1961 concert given shortly after his release from hospital having suffered a heart attack. He certainly doesn’t spare the left hand in this strongly incursive reading. The centrepiece of this latest volume, however, as Mark Ainley notes in the booklet, is Brahms’ Op.5 sonata, which comes from an ABC broadcast in 1953. This is a convincingly large-scale reading with a powerful sense of momentum and sweep. It doesn’t forego deft coloration in the slow movement either, and the recording has fidelity enough to catch Spivakovsky’s control of dynamics; there is much fine, sensitive and poetic playing here, and a real sense of dignified nobility in the rolled chords towards the end of this movement. There is no flagging in the energico of the Scherzo or in the introspective fragility of the Intermezzo. The finale is similarly successful, not least the chorale grandeur and the only concern – and it has been done well so you would not notice – is that the final moments of the sonatas are missing. Spivakovsky’s son Michael coached a student to play these final bars and it is this that one hears to ensure the integrity of the sonata and not to end so fine a performance on a knife-edge.
Those who have collected this series will note another performance of Kabalevsky’s Third Sonata, Op.46 (a typo in the track details has it as ‘Sonata No.9’). This comes from a mid-50s BBC broadcast and can be contrasted with the later home recording preserved in the first volume. Good though this is, once again I find that Moiseiwitsch has the better solutions to the work’s questions of projection, not least in the cantabile of the central movement.
The smaller pieces are heard in preserved recordings of sometimes variable sound. I still feel that Spivakovsky’s approach to rubato can be destabilising from time to time – not least in the Rachmaninov - but he is a refined colourist and it’s valuable to hear the two pieces by Harald Saeverud, especially as the first of the Lette Stykker pieces, a Rondo amoroso, was dedicated to the pianist. The self-announced final piece, Liadov’s The Musical Snuff Box is a suitably Golden Age way in which to end this 78-minute volume.
Jonathan Woolf
Contents
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
English Suite No. 3 in G minor, BWV 808:.V. Gavotte I [1:23]: VI. Gavotte II (ou La Musette) and da capo [1:42]
Recorded in concert, 1961
Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5 (1853) [36:52]
Recorded ABC, 1953
Felix MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)
Songs Without Words, Op 30 (1829-45) No 6 - Venetian Gondola Song [3:26]
Recorded on Spivakovsky's own Steinway, c.1964
Alexander GLAZUNOV (1865-1936)
Three Morceaux, Op 49 - 3. Gavotte (1891) [4:44]
Recorded ABC, c.1955
Claude DEBUSSY (1862-1918)
Children's Corner - 1. Dr Gradus ad Parnassum (1906-08) [2:06]
Recorded on Spivakovsky's own Blüthner, 1961|
Sergei RACHMANINOV (1873-1943)
Preludes Op 32 - 5. Moderato (1910) [3:26]
Recorded on Spivakovsky's own Blüthner, 1961
Harald SAEVERUD (1897 – 1992)
Lette Stykker Vol. 1, Op 14 - 7. Rondo amoroso [3:34]
Lette Stykker Vol. 2, Op 18 - 2. Smafulg-vals (Little Bird Waltz) [2:39]
Recorded BBC, c.1953/4
Dmitri KABALEVSKY (1904-1987)
Piano Sonata No. 9 in F Major, Op. 46 [16:00]
Recorded BBC, c.1953/4
Anatoly LYADOV (1855-1914)
The Musical Snuff Box, Op. 32 (1893) [2:32]
Recorded NZBC, c.1955
